The present invention relates to means for supporting stringed instruments of the floor standing type such as a bass violin, for example, as they are played by standing musicians, and more particularly to a selectively adjustable support assembly which substantially eliminates the tilting moment caused by the weight of the instrument. The support assembly thus provides the musician with an instrument which is much less strenuous to handle.
The facility with which a musician may play a relatively large, standing musical instrument such as a bass violin, for example, tends to vary with a variety of circumstances. A right-handed player, for instance, typically operates a bow or plucks strings with his right hand, and slidingly positions the left hand on the neck of the instrument to appropriately finger the strings. In addition to fingering the strings, the left hand (and shoulder if playing in the high register) also needs to support and balance the instrument, thus requiring additional effort and concentration on the part of the musician. How much effort and concentration is needed, of course, depends upon, among other things, the physical proportions of the musician, the dimensions of the instrument, and the musician's playing technique.
Musicians playing in a standing position usually find it necessary to tilt the instrument a certain amount away from the vertical in order to reach the strings easier. When this is done, an instrument which includes a conventional, elongated endpin extending downwardly from a knob on the bottom surface of the instrument body tends to slip away from the musician due to the tilting moment created by the offset center of gravity (referred to hereinafter as CG) and the low coefficient of friction inherent in the material which composes the endpin. This requires the musician to support and balance the instrument with a force which will provide an equal and opposite moment to counteract the force produced by the tilting.
To remedy the problem of the instrument sliding away from the musician, non-slip materials have been used on the tip of the endpins. This cures the slipping of the instrument, but the large tilting moment still exists due to the offset CG.
A bent endpin has been used in the past in an attempt to remedy the problem of the offset CG. The bent endpin design positions the point at which the endpin engages the floor back towards the line of action which runs through the CG along the weight force vector of the instrument (i.e., the line of action which, in this case, is the line which extends perpendicularly upwards from the floor, through the CG). Depending on the amount of tilt of the instrument, the bent endpin reduces the tilting moment of the instrument accordingly, thus lessening the force required by the musician to counteract the moment.
A major disadvantage of the bent endpin design is that the endpin provides support which substantially eliminates the tilting moment of the instrument at only one particular tilt angle. This severely limits any experimentation a musician may perform to perfect his playing technique. In addition, if a musician plays a variety of instruments, it would be necessary to buy a separate support member for each instrument. Furthermore, this endpin construction flexes fairly easily, especially for musicians who are short, and/or have a tall instrument. This induces a "pogo-stick" type bouncing of the instrument which requires the musician to further increase his/her control and support of the instrument.